VM Business + Static IPs: Will hosting our own servers work?

As the subject says, we want to order VM Business (VOOM Fibre 3+), get some static IPs (not �stickies�) and host our server in-house.

The servers aren�t meant to handle thousands of visits but we do want them to work as they would in a DC (with just lower internet speeds obviously).
One of those servers will be our VoIP PBX.

I see in the forums horror stories about with VM Business particularly when static IPs are involved.

My question is really simple�. Assuming that my area has no issues will the above work (with the bandwidth advertised) or this is simply daydreaming?

It will also be beneficial to hear from someone who does run such a similar setup.


PS: Please don�t lecture me about why servers should be on a DC. You will be off topic.

Anyone?

I think the simple answer is that it'll work, as it is just IP traffic the same as it would be in a DC but as you've mentioned, they will have lower speeds (and latency/jitter will likely be higher and reliability won't be as good (generally)).

If you're using the connection for normal use too that will impact the performance. For example, if you were uploading files or sending large emails, this could saturate the upload path (which will be much slower than download) and negatively impact your voice calls.

SIP is latency sensitive and how busy the VM network in your area is along with the use of the connection for other things will determine the quality of those calls.

Matt

you should really be looking at Direct Internet Access (Lease line) as it is a business grade of broadband.

for what you are looking to do you maybe better with a service that will provide the same upload as download speeds.

the old saying you get what you pay for, so if VM Business is what you want just order it and see how it go's
i deal with a lot of business that use VM most with out issue.

Edited by copex (Thu 21-Mar-19 21:24:07)

As long as you don't use the full upload capacity at any point or have QoS in place it will work. It's just an IP connection.

I have stuff hosted on a VMB connection that works fine, however caveat that with that I also have a secondary and tertiary connection running over £1.5k of hardware powered by 4-figures a year in software licences.

So, I run a very busy network with an email server, a VOIP PBX and a whole office full of people on my Enta.net 80/20 line handled by a complex pfSense firewall / router installation.

What's that got to do with your question re. Virgin business static IP's?

Well, my Virgin 350meg Static IP line has been banished to performing simply as my backup line, and some background overflow email server traffic.

Why? I hear you ask.

Because it's not static IP's as you are used to. Yes they work, ish!, they are delivered via a VPN tunnel and in my experience I very seldom get anywhere near my max DL speed.
Forget about being able to reliably Max out your UL bandwidth at all.
My line spikes with huge latency and then drops the connection when I do.

I have users complain of web page timeouts all the time on the VM connection, and I'm asked all the time, why our internet is soooo slow!

Single thread speed tests are a joke and traffic on the VM only delivers a fraction of my actual single thread bandwidth so is generally unreliable on video and my VOIP can be a bit choppy on the virgin line.

There's very little other than the actual static IP's that's business class with Virgin's business connections.
They're generally over subscribed with home users which WILL impact you because your traffic is basically just lumped onto their residential infrastructure but travels across their Static IP VPN tunnel.

I often have them connectiong up residential users and they will happily fiddle and disconnect cables during the day which means my connection drops while they link someone else up.

Having my Virgin (backup) line that actually handles very little of my day to day traffic go offline for upto 5 minutes at a time for no apparent reason several times a week isn't amusing.

Does that answer any of your questions?

Why not use QoS?
It is meant to normalise the traffc instead sending to the internet all the packets on a first come first served basis with attention to sensitive packets like VoIP related ones.
I'm a bit puzzled here.
Care to elaborate on this?
Ta

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

As long as you don't use the full upload capacity at any point or have QoS in place it will work. It's just an IP connection.

I have stuff hosted on a VMB connection that works fine, however caveat that with that I also have a secondary and tertiary connection running over £1.5k of hardware powered by 4-figures a year in software licences.

In reply to a post by netizen_uk:

As the subject says, we want to order VM Business (VOOM Fibre 3+), get some static IPs (not �stickies�) and host our server in-house.

Virgin Business supplies Static IP addresses by GRE tunnelling them to the router/modem they provide. This means you cannot get full 1500 MTU, it's something stupid like 1440 to make stuff work once you've allowed for your own overhead on top of the GRE overhead on top of the baseline overhead.

They were fine to do reverse DNS.

There is no IPv6.

The reliability of the Static IP service is.... variable.

The throughput of your service once using Static IP addresses is.... inconsistent

Could I recommend it...

No.
[Edit: Do we still buy Virgin Media Business service... No... ceased it the minute the contract was up]

Edited by therioman (Fri 22-Mar-19 20:25:40)

My read was that he said so long as you DONT saturate upload

Alternatively you can run QoS which will do something approaching this then all will be fine

Hi,

I currently run VMB VOOM + with 13 static ip addresses since the middle of last 2018, main reason I took up the VMB service is because BT completely messed up, however I have to say, the service has been a million times better, always getting full download and upload anytime of the day, for me I've had zero downtime, it's cheaper than what I was paying BT Business broadband, I'm also using the draytek 3900, it took me a little work to pass through the static Ip's from the hitron modem but once it was setup I was good to go, one thing to note is the hitron firewall is still active even in modem mode so I did at the start have some issues having vpn connections coming in to the network, I think mainly because I use GRE but again a few tweaks and that was fixed, these days I have my BT Business VDSL2 connection as a backup, speeds I get from that are 50/13.

hope this gives you some idea on the service I get, I'm looking forward to 500/35 from VMB, I would like more upload speed but hey as Openreach are currently rolling out FTTP in Wallasey Wirral and BT offer 315/48 I might upgrade and anything bandwith hungry on the uploads I might swap them on to the BT line

Edited by deleted (Sun 24-Mar-19 10:35:57)